Court order stops unlawful defunding threat that would have forced local governments and schools to relinquish funds for essential programs or submit to Trump ideology
SAN FRANCISCO (April 1, 2025) — San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu released the following statement after U.S. District Court Judge Edward M. Chen granted a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the Trump Administration from imposing illegal conditions on AmeriCorps funding. The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and the City of Santa Fe, New Mexico, filed the lawsuit on March 10 against AmeriCorps for illegally conditioning program funding on compliance with new conditions to enact President Trump’s policy preferences, including recent executive orders. The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office is representing SFUSD in the lawsuit.
AmeriCorps, the federal agency known for funding volunteer service programs to help disadvantaged communities, sent an illegal directive to SFUSD, Santa Fe, and other grant recipients stating that all funding would be revoked unless grantees implemented President Trump’s anti-equity, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-environmental policies. The Temporary Restraining Order issued yesterday prohibits the AmeriCorps directive from being enforced.
“President Trump cannot hold our kids and seniors hostage to force people to agree with him,” said San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu. “As Congress intended, AmeriCorps funding has provided our communities with critical support they need to overcome challenges and succeed. We are pleased the Court agreed that we are likely to prevail in showing that the Administration’s new grant conditions are illegal. The Court’s order prevents these illegal conditions from being enforced so that our most vulnerable students and communities continue to benefit from AmeriCorps programming.”
“This court victory demonstrates SFUSD’s strong commitment to fight for our most vulnerable students,” said SFUSD Superintendent Dr. Maria Su. “We deeply appreciate the City Attorney’s Office for their support and dedication to ensuring that essential services—such as mentorship, academic tutoring, LGBTQ+ support, and student well-being—remain in place to benefit the City’s youth.”
Background
AmeriCorps is a federal agency that supports a variety of public-private partnerships to address local challenges through “voluntary citizen service” members, who are typically adults between 18 and 24 years old. AmeriCorps awards grants to fund activities “designed to help the poor, the disadvantaged, the vulnerable, and the elderly.”
Congress has explicitly endorsed AmeriCorps programs that meet unmet “health, veteran, and other human, educational, environmental, or public safety needs and promote greater community unity through the use of organized teams of participants of varied social and economic backgrounds, skill levels, physical and developmental capabilities, ages, ethnic backgrounds, or genders.” Congress envisioned AmeriCorps-funded programs would identify and meet “unmet educational needs within communities,” and approved of mentoring programs “for disadvantaged youths and other youths.”
On February 13, 2025, AmeriCorps issued a directive to grantees and states that administer their grants stating that all current AmeriCorps grant awards must comply with President Trump’s executive orders and actions, including the executive orders targeting DEI programs, LGBTQ+ communities, and climate change initiatives. The AmeriCorps directive required all grant recipients immediately to stop all “noncompliant” activities and certify that their programs comply with all administration executive orders and do not include any “activities that promote DEI activities.” If a non-compliant recipient did not want to change its programming and amend its grant, it was required to relinquish the funding by emailing the regional AmeriCorps office by February 19.
The original AmeriCorps grant agreements—previously approved by the federal government—do not prohibit grantees from using their awards on activities that promote DEI activities. In fact, during the grant application process, AmeriCorps required SFUSD to verify their “commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility” and explain how leadership and staff “have similar lived experience as the beneficiary population and/or community being served.”
If the AmeriCorps directive and new conditions were allowed to stand, SFUSD would have faced the impossible choice of foregoing over $650,000 for a successful mentorship program for vulnerable students at a time when the District is facing a budget deficit and layoffs, or attempting to comply with the new conditions that undermine the program’s goals and effectiveness, possibly only for the federal government to decide that it still was not complying. Santa Fe would face a similar choice for two senior programs and a “foster grandparent” program that pairs senior mentors with at-risk children.
The lawsuit alleges the new AmeriCorps conditions violate the Spending Clause of the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. The Court found the public interest tips sharply in Plaintiffs’ favor, and Plaintiffs have already experienced irreparable harm and are likely to succeed on the merits. The Court’s order today prevents the AmeriCorps directive and new conditions from being enforced current grants and any forthcoming grant renewals.
The Temporary Restraining Order will be in place until April 15, 2025, at which point the Court will consider a Motion for Preliminary Injunction. The case is San Francisco Unified School District, et al., v. AmeriCorps, et al., U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Case No. 3:25-cv-02425.
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